s/v Adventure Post-Winter Status

Rained lot last night, lightning and thunder for a few hours on and off. Washed the boat off. Was covered in dust out on the deck, but that’s all gone now. Now, when I have time (I don’t know when that will be, lol) I’ll have to get out and wash the topsides down, and put on some wax. Boat needs it badly.

Some of our lines were out over the winter time and faded some. I don’t think any of them are too worse for the wear.

Bow platform needs some varnish. I only had time to get two coats on it before we had to rapidly depart, most of it is worn off already. I’ll do a light sanding and recover that soon. I did bring my sander with me this time so I can use it to do the rails around the boat and get them sanded quickly and efficiently instead of working a foot at a time and killing my shoulders.

This morning we had drip coffee from our new coffee maker. The only thing wrong is that it’s only an eight cup pot. Making it like I usually do, with three little scoops of coffee makes it too strong. So, I’ll try tomorrow with 2 scoops and see how it comes out. I wish the pot were bigger but that was what we found. I wanted a stainless steel pot instead of glass, as I broke the last glass one in the sink before we ran off to Colorado. This one should last longer.

After doing a quick trip around the deck in the rain this morning, everything looks good. There’s some chaff on the stern line, and the dock master added a second line for me after the big storms moved through here a few weeks ago. We also had a fender blow up in the strong winds, but we had some aboard so he also added one. I’ll need to go get replacements now. And perhaps some fender covers or something. I saw where someone bought golf shirts to cover his on facebook. The shirts were much cheaper than the fender covers, and it’s time to start being more frugal. We still have one more trip across country coming up in July.

Today I’ll open the battery compartment and run checks on the electrolyte (I did voltage checks yesterday and the batteries were charged properly so I assume the electrolyte is doing ok, but I want to double check it). The boat has been on trickle all winter and the checks I did last were six months ago. That reminds me, time flies when you’re having fun.

When we leave Colorado it seems like we’ve been gone forever when we go back. But when we’re on the boat time goes so quickly. It’s been a year on the 13th of May since my heart attack. That seems eons ago, but traveling to the boat last July seems like a few weeks ago and not months. Staying in Colorado from December through April – four months – seemed forever because we couldn’t DO anything. The boat was too far, and we have a car, but we didn’t get to do a lot. We traveled a couple of times, but not enough to make it seem like we were seeing anything new.

The trip across country took us about three weeks, stopping to visit friends and family. But, again it seemed too short. Now we have a lot of boat chores to do to prepare for moving, BUT, at this point, I’m going to take my time doing it.

We have to drive up to see the marina tomorrow. We’re going to see it to verify it’s where we want to be for the summer. Once we do that, then I’ll work on the logistics of getting our boat there, and our car there. We want both available for the summer. Then we have to work our storage for the car while we’re gone to the Bahamas.

I guess the Bahamas is where we’re strongly leaning to going for this fall and winter season. JoAnne might have different ideas too, but we’ve both looked at Florida and Bahamas.

We decided to “take the day off” today because we did travel three weeks without much of a break, driving for 5-9 hours each day, stopping and visiting and going places eventually tires you out. haha However, even taking the day “off” we’ll likely run up and do laundry today, and I’ve got some stuff to move and re-arrange in the forward compartment. JoAnne wants to work on the aft head and empty the cabinets, go through our stuff there and throw out unused things and make space for towels and other stuff there. Mostly, I am trying to get some blog posts in because they help me remember things I’ve forgotten.

Speaking of forgotten….what was I going to say? Oh, yeah, my heart issues…. Led to certain medications. One of the meds I take is a statin, it is called Atorvastatin. It is also known as Lipitor. Some of you know it’s used to block production of cholesterol. I’ve got to take it because during the surgery last year they removed parts of my heart, the aortic valve (which was deformed) and replaced it with a tissue valve (apparently from a pig, because I crave bacon now, lol).

Taking the drug is supposed to prevent me from plaque build up in my heart, arteries and so forth but it has a side effect of making me forget things short term. My short term memory is messed up. Before we left the boat I had stopped taking it because I ran out and they wanted $900 bucks for the prescription which I refused to pay at the time without insurance. We have insurance now, but it still costs me 20+ bucks for the one (and 20 for another and more for the blood pressure meds).

So… I go back for a physical in July and I’m going to chat with my doc about trying something other than this drug. My cholesterol has NEVER been high, ever. So I want to get something that will do it more “naturally”, like certain vitamins.

Back to the boat. This marina did take care of our boat for the most part. I don’t see any other damage from other boats, they made sure our oars stayed attached to the dinghy in the wind storm, and all the other things I mentioned, plus checked battery levels several times for me.

The boat probably needs a pressure wash, but I’ll hold that until next marina. That reminds me, I need to call them and chat and let them know we’re coming up tomorrow to check the place out and get a tour. I already have a slip assigned there, but I want to look at the channel in person and the turns I have to make coming in. It looks tight on the charts and on the satellite view. And getting into the slip might be a problem, but the water is about 12′ deep there so I fell good about that. Also, floating docks. We will never again stay at a fixed dock and in the Bahamas I’ll just plan to anchor out most of the time. They have pretty high tides there (last time we were there, we had to climb ladders to get in and out of the boat we stayed on).

I want to say HI to some of the people who have asked for me to write more. I’ve gotten comments and/or emails saying “write more”. The best one was from someone at my former work who said she enjoyed following us without having to do all the work herself. haha. So, Susan, this post is for you! haha (Now, just imagine all the stuff I’m NOT talking about having to do!)

JoAnne and I want to thank everyone who visited with us across the country, especially Paul and Cathy, A’lice and Larry and Mike and Cindy who put us up for a few days while we visited. To Stephen and Judy, thanks for inviting us to the perfectly timed pot luck at your marina in St. Augustine!

Lastly, to our Daughter Kristy and her Husban, Carlos; Thank you for everything, for putting up with us, and letting us stay with you while mom’s back healed. She is still not at 100% and we’re not sure if her back will ever get back to normal but without you guys we’d have had to sell the boat and move back, get jobs and be mediocre people again. haha.

Onward and upward… I’ve got things to get done so time to run. See you next entry everyone!